A wireless multi-hop network, sometimes referred to as a wireless mesh network, is a co-operative communication infrastructure between individual wireless transceivers (called radios) resident in distributed devices acting as nodes of the network. Communication between an initiating and destination node is carried out through a number of intermediate nodes whose function is to relay information from one point to another. Each such relay is referred to as a “hop”. In order to accomplish this task, each node communicates packet routing information to neighboring nodes within range. Whenever a data packet is received by a node, it determines what to do with it based on the routing information. This may be to pass it on to a neighboring node, keep it, or both.
Using multiple radios in a node of a multi-hop wireless network is an effective technique for enhancing the network's capacity by allowing for a high degree of parallelism in data transmission. For example, multiple communication links can exist between two neighboring multi-radio nodes when more than one radio of a node is within range of a neighboring node. This means that a node can send and receive data packets at the same time. In addition, each multi-radio node can have one or more communication links with a plurality of its neighboring nodes, rather than just one.